The Hindu Business Line : Inflation rate tops 6% on costlier manufactured, food items

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New Delhi Feb. 2 The annual wholesale price index-based inflation rose 6.11 per cent during the week ended January 20, higher than the previous week's annual rise of 5.95 per cent. The increase in the year-on-year inflation rate was primarily on account of an increase in prices of manufactured products and food items.

Inflation had touched 6.12 per cent during the week ended January 6 this fiscal, but it came down to below six per cent the following week.

Fuel cheaper

The wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities for the latest reported week ended at 208.5 points, up from 208.3 points the previous week. Inflation was at 4.24 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago.

On a disaggregated basis, the primary articles' group, with a weightage of 22.02 per cent on the index, rose 0.2 per cent to 213.7 points against the previous week.

The fuel, power light and lubricants group, with a weightage of 14.23 per cent, declined 0.1 per cent to 322.1 points for the previous week due to lower prices of furnace oil.

The manufactured products' index, which has 63.75 per cent weightage on the index, rose 0.1 per cent to 181.4 per cent, from 181.2 per cent for the previous week.

Eggs dearer

Among the primary articles' group, the food articles index rose 0.4 per cent to 214.6 points due to higher prices of eggs, condiments and spices (4 per cent each), pulses like arhar (2 per cent), moong and masur (1 per cent).

The prices of fruits and vegetables, maize and fish-marine also increased by one per cent each.

Among the manufactured products, commodities that witnessed substantial increase in prices during the week included oil cakes (4 per cent), imported edible oil (1 per cent), rice bran oil (3 per cent).

However, prices of rape and mustard oil declined by 3 per cent. The index for textile group rose by 0.2 per cent to 133.4 per cent for the week due to higher prices of hessian cloth (4 per cent) and hessian and sacking bags (2 per cent).

Machine tools costly

The rise in price of newspapers (2 per cent) and paper also contributed to rise in wholesale prices.

The price of machine and machine tools witnessed sharp increase during the period, with prices of hydraulic machines increasing by as much as 30 per cent.

However, there was a marginal decline in prices of transport equipment and parts during that period, with prices of broad gauge vehicles declining by 11 per cent and passenger carriage by 3 per cent.

For the week ended November 25, 2006, the final wholesale price index stood revised by the Government at 209.1 points as compared to the provisional 208.6 points and the annual rate of inflation based on final index stood revised to 5.55 per cent as compared to the provisional figures of 5.30 per cent.